Prepare your website for the European Accessibility Act
Enforcement of the EAA (Directive 2019/882) began June 28, 2025. Evidence-backed accessibility audits aligned to WCAG 2.1 AA and EN 301 549 — the technical standards EU authorities reference when investigating non-compliance.
Free scan available · WCAG 2.1 AA · EN 301 549 aligned · Built for EU agencies
The EAA applies across all 27 EU member states
The European Accessibility Act (Directive 2019/882/EU) sets harmonized accessibility requirements for a wide range of products and services sold in the EU. Each member state transposed it into national law, and the requirements have applied to new services and substantially updated existing ones since June 28, 2025. Services already in operation before that date have until June 28, 2030 — but consumer complaints and market surveillance can begin at any time.
Who is covered
E-commerce, consumer banking, electronic communications, transport ticketing and information, audio-visual media on demand, e-books and reading software, and other consumer-facing digital services placed on the EU market. The EAA covers products and services — websites and apps are services.
Key deadlines
Services and products placed on the market or substantially updated from June 28, 2025 must comply now. Services already in operation before that date have until June 28, 2030. Self-service terminals (ATMs, kiosks) have until June 28, 2030 regardless. The 2030 deadline is not a safe harbour: complaints can trigger investigations immediately.
National enforcement
Each EU member state designated its own market surveillance and enforcement authority. Across the EU, the enforcement pattern is complaint-driven: consumers and disability advocacy organizations report inaccessible services, authorities investigate, and non-compliant businesses face fines and mandatory remediation orders.
The micro-enterprise exemption
Micro-enterprises — fewer than 10 employees AND less than 2 € million annual turnover or balance sheet total — are exempt from the service requirements. The threshold is stricter than most businesses assume. A 12-person agency or a shop with 3 € million in sales is not exempt.
Three steps to real preparation, not a checkbox
The same workflow EU agencies use to prepare client sites for Directive 2019/882 — from initial gap assessment to ongoing evidence trail.
Free Scan
Up to 5 pages scanned automatically. Get a prioritized snapshot of accessibility issues, evidence blocks, and a personalized free-to-paid recommendation. Emailed within 24 hours.
Start a Free ScanAccessibility Audit
Up to 15 key pages reviewed. Prioritized findings with selectors, HTML snippets, screenshots, journey impact, owner suggestions, and a remediation roadmap with effort ranges. White-label ready.
Request an AuditMonthly Monitoring
Rescan up to 3 client sites monthly, with regression detection, verified-fix tracking, and branded reports your agency can forward without rewriting. Builds the evidence trail over time.
Set Up MonitoringWhat standards does the EAA reference?
The EAA points to the harmonized European standard EN 301 549 as the primary path to demonstrating conformance. For websites and web applications, that primarily means WCAG 2.1 Level AA, plus the additional requirements in clause 9 of EN 301 549 for web content.
Perceivable content
- Text alternatives for non-text content (images, icons, media)
- Captions and alternatives for audio and video
- Color contrast and visual presentation
- Resizable text, reflow, and orientation
Operable interface
- Full keyboard accessibility for navigation, forms, and interactive components
- Sufficient time, no traps, and no seizure-inducing content
- Focus visible, predictable, and logical
- Bypass blocks and accessible page structure
Understandable content
- Language declared and consistent
- Predictable navigation and consistent identification
- Form labels, error identification, and helpful suggestions
- Input assistance for legal, financial, and transactional steps
Robust implementation
- Valid name, role, and value for assistive technology
- ARIA used correctly, not as a band-aid
- Status messages exposed without focus changes
- Compatibility with current assistive technologies
Manual review is still required. Industry estimates from Deque and WebAIM put automated scanner detection at around 30–40% of WCAG issues. The rest — keyboard journey breakage, screen reader naming, focus management, semantic structure, and content clarity — needs a human pass. Our paid audits include operator review of every finding before publication and flag which criteria were automated versus human-verified, but a full manual conformance audit of every flow and authenticated state is out of scope unless specifically contracted.
How does EAA enforcement work in practice?
Each EU member state enforces the EAA through its own designated market surveillance authorities. In practice, across the EU, enforcement has followed a common pattern regardless of the specific national transposition law.
Complaint-driven investigation
Most cases begin with a complaint from a consumer or disability advocacy organization, not a proactive audit sweep. A single credible complaint is enough to trigger a formal investigation — and complaints are free to submit.
Penalties and remediation orders
Non-compliant businesses can face financial penalties set by each member state. More disruptive in practice are remediation orders requiring documented fixes within a deadline. Repeat failure or non-cooperation escalates the exposure.
Reputational damage often exceeds the fine
Public complaints frequently generate press coverage and social media attention before any authority ruling is issued. The business named in a disability accessibility complaint suffers reputational and brand risk that a later settlement does not undo.
Why isn't an accessibility widget enough for the EAA?
Overlay widgets — JavaScript add-ons that promise to make any site "compliant" without code changes — are widely marketed in the EU. They do not address what EN 301 549 and the EAA actually require: the underlying service, not a layer on top of it.
A runtime layer that does not change the underlying site
- Adds a JavaScript layer on top of the existing HTML. The HTML, ARIA, and content remain unchanged.
- Often interferes with users' existing assistive technology, forcing screen reader users to disable it.
- Cannot fix issues that depend on real content decisions: image descriptions, form labels, semantic structure, journey design.
- The accessibility community publishes the Overlay Fact Sheet documenting widely reported limitations, signed by hundreds of independent experts.
- Legal actions in the EU and US continue against businesses that relied on overlays as their only approach.
Real evidence the underlying service can defend
- Identifies the actual barriers in the underlying HTML, ARIA, and content — what EN 301 549 actually points at.
- Produces a report with selectors, HTML snippets, screenshots, and prioritized remediation steps your developers can act on.
- Combines automated scanning with operator-led review of every finding before publication, so DOM-reachable issues get prioritised with honest scope.
- Builds an evidence trail over time — which findings were resolved, which regressed, and which remain open.
- Aligned with what market surveillance authorities look for: the underlying service, not a button on top of it.
Widgets can have a supplemental role for user personalization preferences (font size, contrast). They cannot stand in for the underlying conformance work that EN 301 549 is about.
Same directive, 27 national laws
Each EU member state transposed Directive 2019/882 into its own national legislation. The core accessibility requirements are harmonized across the EU — the technical standard you need to meet (EN 301 549 / WCAG 2.1 AA) is the same. But enforcement authorities, fine structures, and procedural details differ by country.
EN 301 549 · WCAG 2.1 AA
The technical standard is the same across all 27 countries
See what an audit report actually looks like
A real, populated demo report — with severity-prioritized findings, evidence blocks, screenshots, journey impact, remediation guidance, and a roadmap your client's dev team can actually work from.
Honest scope
AccessiProof provides evidence-backed website accessibility audits, prioritized findings, and remediation guidance. Our reports support preparation for the technical standards referenced by the European Accessibility Act and its national transpositions.
Our reports are not legal advice, not certification, and not a formal conformance determination unless explicitly stated otherwise in writing. Compliance decisions remain the responsibility of the covered business, its legal counsel, and the relevant national enforcement authority. Where authoritative determinations are required, we recommend involving qualified accessibility and legal professionals in your jurisdiction.
Where this page references EN 301 549 and WCAG 2.1 AA, we do so because they are the technical standards used to demonstrate conformance with the EAA in most EU member states. They are not the only possible mechanism, and the broader legal picture is wider than any single technical pass/fail test.
Related EU accessibility frameworks
Every EU law in this space sits on the same technical spine. Use these pages to map your clients' obligations across Europe.
EN 301 549
The harmonised technical standard regulators cite as the conformance test.
Read pageEU frameworkWCAG 2.2
W3C success criteria at the heart of every EU accessibility rulebook.
Read pageNational lawGermany — BFSG
Barrierefreiheitsstärkungsgesetz: Germany's EAA transposition, in force since 28 June 2025.
Read pageNational lawFrance — RGAA & Article 47
Dual track: RGAA 4.1 for public bodies and Ordonnance 2023-859 for private e-commerce.
Read pageNational lawSpain — Ley 11/2023
RD 1112/2018 for public sector plus Ley 11/2023 and RD 193/2023 for private e-commerce.
Read pageNational lawRomania — Legea 232/2022
Romania's EAA transposition, enforced by ANPC since 28 June 2025.
Read pageNational lawItaly — D.Lgs. 82/2022
Italian EAA transposition layered on the Stanca Law (Legge 4/2004), supervised by AgID and AGCOM.
Read pageNational lawNetherlands — Toegankelijkheid
Besluit digitale toegankelijkheid for public bodies plus EAA-derived obligations for private services.
Read pageNational lawIreland — S.I. 636/2023
Irish EAA transposition, enforced by CCPC and sectoral regulators since June 2025.
Read page